Monthly Archives: September 2015

Our metamorphosis continues. In May, we abruptly went from full-time RV travel to putting down roots in mid-coast Maine—an area entirely new to us. We are so besotted with our new home that—for now—we do not want to leave and hate to see the trailer sitting in the driveway, unused. So, we are in the process of selling the trailer and hope to see it off to a new home soon. We have a slew of projects lined up and waiting for the tractor that will replace it.

I did not even think about blogging during our busy summer. In fact, I had pretty much decided not to continue this blog after completing our RV journey. To my surprise , however, the blog urge suddenly reappeared and, along with it, a desire to document the transformation of this piece of land that we so fortunately found.

Right after we moved in.

Our home here is a long-delayed dream. In the early 1980s, we entered a land lottery in Alaska for homestead parcels near the Susitna River. Of course, as with most lotteries, we didn’t win. So we put our land fantasy in the deep freeze.

Finally, now, in retirement, we have the time to do and create whatever we want and a seven acre playground for a palette. We plan to turn our acreage into a fairly self-sufficient place where we grow much of our own food. I doubt that we will keep animals (aside from dogs, of course) because we want to continue to travel, but we will keep bees, grow a huge variety of vegetables, herbs, and flowers, and create an orchard of old and new trees.

We were thrilled to move into our house at the end of May because it gave us enough time to get a garden in this summer. We immediately built raised beds for vegetables.

The raised beds were our first project.

They have been producing beyond our expectations all summer.

Tomato blossoms in the morning dew.

Potatoes

We also inherited a lovely, thoughtfully-designed perennial garden that has been a pleasure to watch unfold as one set of blooms is replaced by another.

These globe thistles were spectacular.

George has been clearing new garden land and trails with a brush hog and built a deluxe compost bin and firewood racks (more on those and other building projects in later posts).

Still life with brushhog

We also spent a good deal of time this summer just watching the sky and the wildlife.

We have made some goldfinches very happy

Sunrise

Thunderheads

We have a huge expanse of sky here, which is relatively rare in most of New England. With no city lights nearby, the stars and Milky Way are incredibly bright. One night, watching meteor showers from our back deck, coywolves just down the hill accompanied the show with a series of escalating, chilling howls. Unforgettable.

Moonrise

Now at the equinox, the days are still summerlike, with chilly mornings.

We are busy stacking firewood to season and raking up scabby apples in hopes of rehabilitating some of our old apple trees. This year, we’re making applesauce from the old tree apples.

These russets are the only apple variety on our old trees that don’t have apple scab. They’re tasty, too.

Next year–hard cider.

We were able to tear ourselves away from our farm projects for a few day trips.

A trip to Fort Knox

and the Penobscot Narrows bridge

But, mostly, we have been content to stay at home–everything we want is right here.